Category: 4×4

I find it incredible how selfish bad drivers can be. Maybe it’s not selfish, maybe it’s just pure stupidity.

Four Wheel drive cars often come with high ground clearance. The reason for this is to allow these vehicles to go over really difficult terrain. If you are driving up the side of a mountain, across a river or through snow or ice, these things are very helpful. But High ground clearance does come with a price, and that is stability. If your vehicle is high it’s not good for going fast, it’s that simple. If you are high off the ground then your vehicle has a higher center of gravity. This means it can fall over if you drive too fast. It also means that if you have to break hard, it can be very difficult to control.

This is basic physics and there is no way around it. It doesn’t matter how large the engine of the vehicle, power doesn’t compensate for stability. Stability control and anti-lock braking help a bit, but they are not designed to counter the effect of being brainless.
But it seems assholes who purchase SUV’s, trucks and any four wheel drive high vehicles have no appreciation for this. They drive badly in pretty much every possible situation.

Too close to the car in front, too fast for the conditions, and without any understanding of the danger they cause.
When the car in front of you has to brake, all you see is the red lights come on, you have no idea if they are braking hard or lightly until it is too late. So these fuckwits who drive badly are constantly slamming on their brakes and wobbling as they try to gain control of their unstable vehicles, causing the lanes either side to react, causing large numbers of accidents.

When I see a pickup truck or an SUV driving badly, I assume instantly that the driver is a brainless asshole, and keep well out of their way. In this way I’ve seen many of them have stupid accidents, and cause others to crash, from a distance.

Just this last weekend, I was commenting to my wife about the aggressive driving of an SUV in the next lane, and I slowed down to keep out of his way. He was driving inches behind another car, and they were both going considerably faster that the speed limit or the road conditions allowed for. As we were watching the car in front touched his brake causing the SUV driver to react by slamming on his brakes. The front if his vehicle swerved violently into the left lane and the driver responded by swerving right. Cars to either side were missed by inches and they all had to brake and swerve to avoid being hit. In this case no impact happened, but the prick in the SUV could have easily caused a big accident and maybe even avoided being impacted directly.

There is no excuse for this ignorant, stupid, selfish behavior, and yet it happens every day.

The car companies actually seem to encourage this kind of stupidity by advertising their vehicles as being exciting race cars. I’m amazed at the lack of legal action against them.

I’m not sure if owning an SUV makes you an asshole, or if it’s just attractive to those who are already assholes.

I used to own a 4×4 and loved it, and I don’t remember being a prick when driving it? But maybe others remember it differently?